


Resolve

by MadameReveuse



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: (sort of), Borg drone, Gen, Hugh considers returning to the Collective, Hugh is hella stressed, Mentions of past abuse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23444923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: Though the Borg do not have mythology, storytelling or any kind of culture, every drone knows the grim warning attached to the instructions regarding encounters with the agent of chaos designated Third of Five.Or: in one of his lowest moments, Hugh receives encouragement from an unlikely source.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Resolve

**Author's Note:**

> Here's an interesting thought I had. Whenever Hugh logs into the Borg, all drones around him instantly catch individuality and have to be cut off from the Collective before it spreads (see Descent). In the eyes of the Queen, Hugh must be such a nuisance. Coming in and taking drones away. And there's NO way to assimilate him without that happening. And he's OUT THERE spreading his horrible sense of personhood to others, and no one knows what he'll do next! He's like a horse loose in a hospital! Like some kind of Borg Antichrist who will not rest before he scattered all the Collective (read: help all the persons currently trapped as drones...)

The Artifact was cold. This defied all logic, seeing as the Artifact was perfectly climate-controlled, the air a temperature never completely pleasant but halfway workable to the Romulans, humans, ex-Borg and various other species employed and living here. A typical compromise: things sort of worked out for everyone, but nobody was happy. Romulans found it too cold, humans too stuffy. The xBs weren’t picky with that sort of thing, their implants regulated their body temperature, adapting it perfectly to the given environment. If Hugh was cold, it was his perception that was off, not his implants or the atmospheric controls.

Lately, as was the case this night as well, he couldn‘t sleep. During the last few days, he had only been able to snatch a couple of hours of disturbed, unsatisfactory rest, and Raktajino only got him so far as compensation. When he did sleep, he dreamt. Many xBs developed recurring nightmares, at some point in the recovery process, of being forcibly re-assimilated into the Collective, but Hugh mostly dreamed of Lore.

The Collective was the Collective was the Collective, a monolith in Hugh’s life, unmoving, unswerving, unimpressed, untouched by his actions or emotions. One couldn’t rage against the monolith or weep over the monolith and expect to thereby change it. One could only do one’s work, steadily and quietly, not to bring the Collective to its knees but to help the drones locked inside of it, to give them back their personhood. But Lore… Lore was different. Lore had touched Hugh where he hurt. Lore had just been one person, one thoroughly rotten person, who had happened upon Hugh at the wrongest of possible times. Hugh had been longing desperately for guidance, young and clueless and so horribly confused, cut off from the Collective and surrounded by his fellow rogue ex-drones, as hapless and distraught as he. When he’d first been on his own like that, without the voices in his head instructing him and lulling him, there had been Geordi to help him through. In his naivete, he had assumed Lore would be a second Geordi, especially with all that talk of Lore’s about helping him, about bringing the rogue Borg who hadn’t even become the xBs yet clarity and purpose and a future so bright it hurt. Oh, how it had hurt.

But most of the time, Hugh didn’t think of Lore a lot. That he was dreaming of him again lately was probably owed to… stress, or something. With every dreary day on this cube, every thankless day of work, of flinching at shadows when traversing the hallways, the surroundings bringing back memories, with every missive to the Federation unanswered, proof that no one cared about the Reclamation Project so long as it stayed out of sight and out of mind, with every Romulan sneering down at him and communicating in no uncertain terms that they regarded him as less than a person, the sick feeling in the pit of Hugh’s stomach returned, the same sick feeling he’d had with Lore. The feeling of being trapped, used, forced to keep quiet so as not to make everything so much worse for himself and his people.

He couldn’t sleep, he realized four nights of insomnia in, because he dreaded not just the dreams but also the next morning, and having to start his work day all over again. But what else could he do? The lack of rest was certainly not doing his nerves any favors. By this time he was about ready to collapse on his bed and weep hysterically, but what he did was shut down the lights in his quarters and cry quietly into his pillow so as not to give the Tal Shiar agent likely monitoring his activities the satisfaction of seeing or hearing him fall apart.

Rationally, Hugh knew that he had most likely felt exactly this miserable in his life before, but his rationale was fraying and he couldn’t fathom when that might have been. He was supposed to have it figured out by now. All the struggle to get here, to shed the Borg drone and become a person, wasn’t it supposed to have made him happy? Wasn’t it supposed to be rewarding in and of itself? Yet here he was, not just on a Borg cube but _alone_ on a Borg cube (the worst of both worlds) being condescended to by Romulans day in and day out, feeling a little more of whatever had allowed him to hang on to hope and to himself thus far draining away. What had it all been for? Was this where his journey had ultimately led him, alone and miserable and with no way off this ride, no place else to go?

But there was another place he could go.

There was always another place left to go.

_No,_ Hugh had thought, the first time this thought had occurred, pushing it away with all the vehemence he could muster. _Not there, never again._

But it had kept reoccurring, and with every time, vehemence had crumbled a little more.

So now here Hugh was, at close to midnight, wandering the halls of the Artifact like the ghost he was. Romulan guards patrolled on the levels cleared for public access, gracing him with barely a nod. Hugh avoided their eyes, anxiously convinced that they would read his purpose on his face if he looked at them directly. A wide array of the cube was not cleared for access by most personnel yet, but as Executive Director of the Reclamation Project, Hugh had all the access codes.

In this part of the cube, all was quiet, except for the arythmic ticking and clicking emanating from the alcoves. Deactivated drones slept. Hugh picked one at random, and woke it.

The drone exited the alcove in the stiff, shambling way of all functioning members of the Collective, its weaponized arm shooting forward. Then the drone stood still, its mismatched eyes locking in on Hugh.

_"We are Borg,"_ it rasped.

Hugh nodded, tight-lipped. "Yep, I’m aware."

The drone stilled.

"What’s your designation, buddy?"

The monotonous answer came after a second. " _Five of Ten."_ In a stroke of inspiration, the drone added, " _You will be assimilated."_

It was a hair-raising threat. Hugh clenched his fists at his sides, hot tears pricking the corners of his eyes. "Good."

The drone didn’t seem to know what to do with that. " _Resistance is futile,"_ it said.

"Oh, I’m not resisting." At any other point, every fiber of Hugh’s being would have screamed to get away. Now, all that happened was a weak lurch in his stomach at the prospect of re-assimilation. Too weak to inform his choice. He was just so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of it being all for nothing. He had once considered his regained individuality a curse. And perhaps it was, or perhaps he wasn’t strong enough to bear it. What even was he doing with his restored personhood? Was he doing enough? Was he doing good? No. He longed to drown it all, extinguish it all in the endless drone of the Collective. The other voices back in his head, a steady stream of comfort and direction. No doubt, no pain, no dreadful moral choices. It would feel like stepping into a clear lake in the summertime, letting the warm water close in above his head, letting it engulf him and sink him, wash away the pain.

Briefly he wondered where that mental image came from. It had to have been years since he was last exposed to the sun of any actual planet. No sunshine and clear lakes for him. For him, there was this.

_I’m sorry, Geordi. I’m too weak._

_"Identify,"_ the drone suddenly demanded, tearing Hugh from his dismal thoughts.

"Huh?"

The drone jerked an arm towards him, repeating the demand. " _Identify."_

_I am Hugh._ Yes, but to what end? Hugh sighed. "Third of Five."

The drone cocked its head, tiny, mechanical movements. It seemed to be searching for something in its memory banks.

_"Further identification is required,"_ it then said.

"Oh, all of it?" Phew. It had been almost thirty years. "Third of Five, ah, Secondary Adjunct of Trimatrix, umm, 407. I think?"

_"You will not be assimilated."_

"Hmmm," Hugh said absentmindedly. Then his brain caught up with the proceedings. Had the drone just…? "Wait, did you say _not_ assimilated?"

_"Third of Five, Secondary Adjunct of Trimatrix 407 will not be assimilated."_

Hugh blinked rapidly. He _wanted_ to go back – he was giving _up_ – and now what, they weren’t _letting_ him?

"Why?"

_"You are an agent of chaos,"_ the drone stated. " _Third of Five, Secondary Adjunct of Trimatrix 407 has been severed from and must not be permitted to interface with the Collective. Attempts to assimilate will damage the Collective and result in resource loss or complete Submatrix failure. Attempts to assimilate will cease until a method to bypass or erase unit infection caused by this lifeform is found."_

Hugh was reeling. "Is… did this come from the Queen?"

_"All drones have been instructed to forego contact with the lifeform known as Third of Five, Secondary Adjunct of Trimatrix 407 or any severed drones influenced by this lifeform. No method to assimilate this lifeform without damaging the Collective has been found."_

"You bet it hasn’t."

_The Borg Queen knew who I am,_ Hugh thought.

_The Borg Queen was real mad at me existing._

_No drone can try to assimilate me now. They’d catch individuality from me… they learned that after the first time._

_Is the Collective… afraid of me?_

"You know why that is so, my friend?" A grin spread on Hugh’s face. "You know why you won’t ever find a way to assimilate me without being transferred my sense of self?"

The drone remained impassive.

"I’ll tell you. It’s because assimilation is not natural. If given the slightest chance, the mind grasps at any opportunity to escape it. Look at me. I was out of the Collective for about a day, and I was already trying to become a person, with a name and an identity. A sense of personhood is vital to any living being. That’s why people will keep on escaping the Collective. That’s why you can’t get the xBs down. That’s why there will never be a way to safely assimilate me!"

Hugh stopped, beaming, breathing heavily. Only now, he became aware of his smile. He hadn’t smiled like this in, oh, weeks. Maybe months.

Immediately, sanity reclaimed him. _What am I doing?_ his voice of reason screamed inside his head. _What did I almost do? Return to the Collective?! Never! What in the stars has gotten into me?_

"You may not know it, but you have given me my resolve back," he told the drone. "Thanks, my friend."

The drone showed no reaction to this. " _Your gratitude is irrelevant."_

"Someday – maybe sooner than you think – you might relearn the value of it."

The drone raised its weaponized hand. " _As you cannot be assimilated, and your continued existence poses a threat to the Collective, elimination will be imminent."_

The drone started walking. It came towards Hugh driven by single-minded purpose.

"What? Eep!" Hugh dove out of the way, and started running.

Running was something the Borg did not do, but Hugh knew the drone had homed in on him. It would come shambling after, and unlike him, it was armed.

And yet, how exhilarating it was to _run_. To feel the staccato of his heart in his chest, the pounding of his pulse, the adrenaline in his blood. He didn’t get a lot of physical activity on this cube normally. Ah, but wasn’t this just what it was all about? Madly, he laughed as he heard a detonation somewhere behind him, and ducked aside of a blast of energy meant to hit him right in his back.

They were getting closer to the inhabited levels. There was a containment forcefield installed on the next crosswalk…

Hugh skidded to a halt when he almost bumped into one of the Romulan guards who had sneered at him earlier. "Lower the forcefield," he ordered, breathless. "Now, now, now, I’ve got an active drone after me!"

The Romulan stared at him, irritated, but hit the button that brought down the forcefield just as the drone entered the crosswalk. It was caught inside the barrier as it flickered to life.

"Sorry, buddy," Hugh said to it. Still flying on the wings of his sudden adrenaline surge, he turned to the Romulan. "Right. We begin the de-assimilation process tomorrow."

The Romulan guard hoisted his disruptor rifle. "Why is there an active drone roaming free on this level?"

Hugh waved a hand. "Call it human error." What was this guy going to do, shoot him for attitude? Provoke a diplomatic incident with the Federation? "Sorry, thanks for the rescue, handsome." Sometimes, when he sensed that a man he was talking to considered him subhuman, he liked to flirt just a little bit. Having a Borg drone come on to them tended to throw the most bigoted meatheads off their game.

The Romulan gave him an unnerved look. He nodded at the drone. "Friend of yours?"

_You thought that could insult me? You don’t even know how to insult me in a way that matters._ Hugh suppressed a laugh. _Oh yeah, I’m back. I can do this forever._

He shrugged, and smiled. "Every enemy’s a friend I haven’t met yet."


End file.
